6 Harsh Truths

December 18, 2012

Well, I found this great cracked.com article by David Wong via Frank Kozik, and I can only agree with the headline: 6 Harsh Truths That Will Make You a Better Person. Now, harsh they certainly are, but it says something about today’s, ahem, stroke-job articles that floods printed media when you find a provocative (and quite funny!) piece such as this, well, refreshing. Good old-fashioned honesty. I hardly knew ye. Take this quote about actually honing a skill in order to find success (be it economical or just “getting the girl”):

Saying that you’re a nice guy is like a restaurant whose only selling point is that the food doesn’t make you sick. You’re like a new movie whose title is This Movie Is in English, and its tagline is “The actors are clearly visible.”

Now I certainly don’t agree with all the sentiments in it, but in all it was a great read and if nothing else you can go through it once and take whatever rings true with you. Personally I found the following quote regarding creativity and its critics dead on:

It’s incredibly comforting to know that as long as you don’t create anything in your life, then nobody can attack the thing you created.

It’s so much easier to just sit back and criticize other people’s creations. This movie is stupid. That couple’s kids are brats. That other couple’s relationship is a mess. That rich guy is shallow. This restaurant sucks. This Internet writer is an asshole. I’d better leave a mean comment demanding that the website fire him. See, I created something.

Oh, wait, did I forget to mention that part? Yeah, whatever you try to build or create — be it a poem, or a new skill, or a new relationship — you will find yourself immediately surrounded by non-creators who trash it. Maybe not to your face, but they’ll do it. Your drunk friends do not want you to get sober. Your fat friends do not want you to start a fitness regimen. Your jobless friends do not want to see you embark on a career.

Just remember, they’re only expressing their own fear, since trashing other people’s work is another excuse to do nothing. “Why should I create anything when the things other people create suck? I would totally have written a novel by now, but I’m going to wait for something good, I don’t want to write the next Twilight!” As long as they never produce anything, it will forever be perfect and beyond reproach. Or if they do produce something, they’ll make sure they do it with detached irony. They’ll make it intentionally bad to make it clear to everyone else that this isn’t their real effort. Their real effort would have been amazing. Not like the shit you made.